Norway needs nurses, and nurses need Norwegian skills
Debate ● kari mari jonsmoen and marit greek
“With political will, the quality of the Norwegian health care system can be improved by integrating language teaching in nursing education,” write Jonsmoen and Greek.
This text is a debate post. The content of the text expresses the author’s own opinion.
Repeated media coverage tells of a persistent shortage of nurses, and the Norwegian Nurses’ Association believes that this affects patient safety. The government proposes to create 500 new study places. “It’s good, but not enough,” says the nurses’ association.
I Khrono 13.03.2022 The union leader points out five key measures to be able to ensure the quality of increased education for nurses. But with 500 new study places, we will not get far when NAV’s business survey 2021 estimates a shortage of a total of 6950 nurses.
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So we are dependent of nurses from abroad. We have been since the 1990s. Without immigrants and their children, the Norwegian health service would be in a bad position. In Oslo alone, more than 40 per cent of the employees in the nursing home service have a mother tongue other than Norwegian (Fafo Report 2020: 27), and in 2021 immigrants accounted for 13.5 per cent of the students in the country’s nursing educations (Statistics Norway, 12.04.2022).
Are the language skills good enough? The answer is no. If the Norwegian Nurses’ Association wants to ensure the quality of education, the strengthening of Norwegian skills must also be added to listening to key measures.
Language difficulties in the health care system is a recurring theme in research and public debate. According to the Fafo report 2020: 27, more than 60 per cent of nursing home employees have experienced episodes worthy of criticism because some of them speak poor Norwegian. Lack of skills in Norwegian is also reported among nursing students.
Students who need it should be able to take the first year of study over to years and receive adapted language training in parallel with vocational training.
The post writers
High Norwegian language competence, both orally and in writing, is important in the Norwegian health care system. For reasons of patient safety, there are requirements that employees can speak Norwegian sufficiently to be able to perform work tasks in a responsible manner. If Norwegian skills are deficient, nursing will also be deficient. There is no disagreement here.
Still will not be the language problems less, neither for nursing students nor for nurses. Subject teachers continue to be uncertain about whether students have understood what they are supposed to, and nurses continue to be uncertain about whether vital information arrives.
500 new study places is a step in the right direction, but an increased number of study places cannot be at the expense of nursing professional quality and patient safety. Norwegian skills in students and nurses thus become crucial.
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Today’s requirements to Norwegian skills are far from sufficient. To believe that the language challenge can be solved with courses or higher admission requirements in Norwegian is naive. In order to develop a functional language for the practice of nursing, the language must be further developed in a nursing professional context. It is demanding and time consuming.
Although study and work provides ample opportunity to use the language both socially and academically, does not mean that there is linguistic development. In fact, the opposite can happen if the learning and working environment is not used consciously and systematically. The language level can stagnate and in the worst case be reduced. Linguistic support is needed to develop functional skills, but neither subject teachers nor nurses have the time or competence to provide systematic guidance.
Should the language problems taken seriously, measures are needed that make it possible to work with the Norwegian language over time, in connection with professional knowledge and professional practice, and with linguistic guidance from someone who has competence in it.
Neither language guidance or formal Norwegian courses in parallel with studies or work, are good solutions. Not because students and nurses do not want to participate. On the contrary, they realize the problem and sign up for the courses offered. But only a few manage to implement. Time and economy are critical factors.
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Nursing students prefer pass the study, albeit with very poor results and often one or more “failed” on the road, and nurses have little profit after long, demanding working days. The 24 hours of the day must be distributed to studies, one or more jobs in the health sector, family life and sleep. Requiring students and employees to also demand demanding Norwegian courses is unreasonable and does nothing. There are other, far better solutions.
With political will The quality of the Norwegian health care system can be improved by integrating language teaching into nursing education. Students who need it should be able to take the first year of study over to years and receive adapted language training in parallel with vocational training. For nurses, Norwegian language training can be offered as continuing education, either online, as classroom teaching or a combination of these.
Knowledge of effective Language learning and teaching aids related to Norwegian in nursing exist and should be used. In addition to political will, however, it requires financial incentives, as an example of student loans. We must recognize that systematic language learning cannot be combined with a full-time study or a full-time job.
Students and nurses with a first language other than Norwegian deserves the necessary linguistic support. Users of the Norwegian health care system deserve to feel safe, and the Norwegian Nurses’ Association deserves to be heard. What are we waiting for?
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